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LinuxDig.Com : Hurricane News : Here we Go Again : Hurricane Jeanne
Author: HumanX | Saturday September 25, 2004
Storm number 3.... How can I tell you I am over it. Let me count the ways. Hurricane Today, Sat September 25th 2004. Chat Live at AIM: linuxdig if your curious or would just like to ask questions about the storm. UPDATED 12 PM - Sep 26th 2004. The End.
* Chat info: As long as we have power we will be online at AIM: linuxdig.
Do you ever wander how people feel after being through 3 hurricanes? Snore... Snore... Snore.... No one wants to board up, no one wants to leave. The danger with the next storm is not only the storm itself, but the danger of who cares.
Here in Palm Beach County, Florida we are expecting 100+ MPH winds and my question is this, how long will I have internet connectivity!? Have mercy! Click the links below, we might need the money! :)
Well folks I am off, time to take care of the house, 5 hours to the storm. This time LinuxDig.Com is in a category 5 hurricane proof building.
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/wptv Shows the storm in near Real Time (Click Digital Dopler).
3:30PM
INCOMING!!! INCOMING!!! We are on the outer edges of the storm, one more feeder band and we are in the thick of things. As it is now, we are getting wind gusts of 30-45 MPH. The skies are grey, we have electricity, internet works and a hurricane is uh comin.
4:30PM
Things are changing fast, in the last hour the sky has darkend considerably and the wind has doubled. This storm is not like Francis, Jeanne is a fast mover. In Francis, we waited for days for the 4 MPH storm to come. Jeanne on the other hand has been moving from 9-17MPH, things literraly are changing by the hour.
As I talk to friends and family they know about the storm through the television because they are in boarded up homes. We could only board up one room from (the safe room) from the inside. So if things get bad which I am sure they will, that is where we will be going.
That is it for now, the news is reporting we are under a tonado watch, I guess mother nature wants to keep things interesting. Hurricanes, Tornado's, Flooding, High Winds, Welcome to South Florida.
5PM Update
I have closed the windows to the house as the HOWL of the hurricane approaches. Outside, the whoosing sound of the wind is becoming louder and the winds have increased in speed. Before the gusts were coming every 15-20 minutes and now the stronger winds are becoming more static with a consistant 30+ MPH blow.
One of the more fascinating aspects of a hurricane is the speed at which the clouds will travel across the sky. They literally look like they are moving at 100 mph. Outside just now, a cloud would enter the left side of my periphral vision and clear the right periphral in about 20 seconds.
7:30 PM
Oh, the madness. We are definately on the edges of the storm, you can here the growl of the wind consistently now. Trees are slanting sideways and the worst part is that I am seeing transformers exploding throughout the city. If you have never seen a transformer explode, it is similar to lightning except the sky turns a pastel green for about 2 seconds. Exploding transformers means soon, no electricity....
The storm has taken a more westerly approach, which puts us more into the impact zone of this hurricane. Original forecasts had the storm more north with us feeling the storm for a brief time, but now, we are in the thick of things.
Winds are sustained in my best guess around 35-40 mph with gusts reaching 50-70. I can here the sound of the trees struggling against the wind and the power of the storm ever increasing.
10:00 PM
Thanks to my 1400 watt triplite, my power outage an hour ago did not limit my ability to use my cordless telephone and my dsl/network.
And now, we are at the moment in the center of the storm, sitting on the floor, watching the news over ther internet and avoiding the windows. In a hurricane the wind sounds like it is 3 or 4 times thicker then normal. It is more like a river of air flowing through the neighborhoods, through the trees, across the roofs and pounding on anything in its way. As I am writing this, I can hear the building creaking as the wind pushes against the exterior. The wind howls and the rain beats on the windows, yep, we are in a hurricane.
I stuck my head outside the door a little while ago and retreated pretty quick. We have a large Banyon Tree in the backyard which is about 6 stories tall and the tree was swaying in the wind like a blade of grass. The wind is that strong.
And so we wait in the wanderful South Florida Humid Heat with no electricity which translates to no air conditioner. Have mercy! But i'll be happy if the building is intact tommorrow morning, that will be just fine with me.
The Next Day
Well the the storm is over and we lived to fight another day! After talking with friends and neighbors, everyone thinks Jeanne was worse than Francis, but the destruction was far less. In the moring as I walked out into the neighborhood, all of the trees were still in the same place that they were the previous night and the only reminents of a hurricane were the thousands of leaves covering the streets.
Francis as I thought, removed the old and the weak, and that was the level of its destruction. Francis it turns out, left very little for Jeanne to play with. That is a good thing.
77% of Palm Beach is without electricity today and the news reports that we could be without electricity for 3 weeks! Goodbye to Jeanne, So long, farewell, glad to see you gone...
P.S.
Another Tropical Storm is floating out their, who knows, I may be doing some more hurricane writing in the near future. Hurricane Season ends in Florida on I believe November 10, we have along way to go, and October tends to be the peak for hurricanes. We have had 4, will their be 5th.
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